24/08/2013 00:00
TW
0
Staff Reporter

PALMA
BALEARIC salaries have increased by 28.8 percent since the beginning of the decade and are “converging” with the national average, according to an advance copy of the “Economic and Social Report 2006” released yesterday by the “Sa Nostra” bank.

In addition to this, “Sa Nostra” said that during 2006 salaries on the islands continued their “holding pattern” which started the year before, when the annual rise was 3.9 percent.

This means that the salaries on the islands during the last six years have converged with those in the rest of the country.
The significance of this is that the increase in salaries in the Balearics must have been more “intense” during the last six years than in the rest of the country, where it was 21.7 percent during the same period, according to figures from the National Institute of Statistics.

These results also indicate that the Balearics is the eighth autonomous region with the highest salary costs.
In fact, in the year 2000 the Balearics had the sixth lowest salary costs in Spain (1'177.90 per month).
However, in 2006 the islands became the eighth region with the highest salary costs (1'613.70 per month).
Although the monthly salary in the Balearics is below the national average, the process of convergence has reduced the difference from 148.50 euros in the year 2000 to 96.5 euros in 2006.

However, the islands continue to have a “wide differential” with the regions which have the highest salaries in Spain, for example Madrid where the difference is 425.50 euros; the Basque region (343.50 euros); Navarra (271.90 euros); and Catalonia (219.20 euros).

By sectors, the Services sector had the highest increase in the country, with 28.1 percent, showing an “upward trend” since the year 2000 of 4.5 percent annually, higher than the regional average of 3.9 percent.

In absolute terms, the Balearics was, during the period 2000 to 2006, the region with the sixth highest salary costs per worker in the Services Sector (1'537.80 per month), just below the national average of 1'572.80 per month, the bank report indicated.